by Wendy Welch ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 2, 2012
An entertaining book with a full cast of eccentric characters.
How a couple of outsiders captured the heart of a small Virginia community in the Appalachian Mountains and succeeded in the unlikely enterprise of opening an independent bookstore.
When her husband, Jack, retired from his position as head of a college department in Edinburgh, the couple decided to move to the United States. Welch, an American ethnographer, had been offered a seemingly attractive position directing an arts nonprofit in the United States, but it didn’t work out. Checking out new places, they settled on Big Stone Gap, the scene of Adriana Trigiani's popular novels as well as the 1908 classic, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, by John Fox Jr. On impulse, Welch and her husband purchased an old Edwardian mansion in poor repair and then decided to open a secondhand bookstore, which they gave the whimsical name Tales of the Lonesome Pine Used Books, Music and Internet Café. In Scotland, the couple had spent weekends performing at local fairs (she as a professional storyteller and he singing Scottish ballads), and Lonesome Pine soon doubled as a community center with a writing group, Celtic songs and dancing, mystery nights, gourmet treats and more. They worked to draw people in from surrounding communities, and initially, their unlikely gamble proved to be a big success as the store thrived. However, to supplement their income, the author took a job at a local nonprofit and ran into a conflict on policy. Gossip spread that they were “uppity incomers,” her husband was refused membership in the Kiwanis club and customers fell away. This time, they determined to stay and in time were accepted as “Jack and Wendy, who run our town's bookstore.” Welch discusses the financial practicalities and the ephemeral aspects involved in creating a peaceful space where people can hang out.
An entertaining book with a full cast of eccentric characters.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-250-01063-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2012
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by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
by Enrico Moretti ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 5, 2012
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's...
A fresh, provocative analysis of the debate on education and employment.
Up-and-coming economist Moretti (Economics/Univ. of California, Berkeley) takes issue with the “[w]idespread misconception…that the problem of inequality in the United States is all about the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99 percent.” The most important aspect of inequality today, he writes, is the widening gap between the 45 million workers with college degrees and the 80 million without—a difference he claims affects every area of peoples' lives. The college-educated part of the population underpins the growth of America's economy of innovation in life sciences, information technology, media and other areas of globally leading research work. Moretti studies the relationship among geographic concentration, innovation and workplace education levels to identify the direct and indirect benefits. He shows that this clustering favors the promotion of self-feeding processes of growth, directly affecting wage levels, both in the innovative industries as well as the sectors that service them. Indirect benefits also accrue from knowledge and other spillovers, which accompany clustering in innovation hubs. Moretti presents research-based evidence supporting his view that the public and private economic benefits of education and research are such that increased federal subsidies would more than pay for themselves. The author fears the development of geographic segregation and Balkanization along education lines if these issues of long-term economic benefits are left inadequately addressed.
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's more profound problems.Pub Date: May 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-75011-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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